Tina Amini

Whether you're getting the PS4 at launch, in a few months' time or never, there's certainly one factor that'll make your decision for you: the games. So today we've got three reviews for games you can pick up for the PS4 on day one.

Contrast

A gorgeous, granted buggy platforming game where you scale both the 3D world in your corporeal form and the 2D shadow world as a silhouette. You follow the story of a broken family, which serves as the setting for the darker undertones of parallel worlds and magic and science. And though the ending's tone may betray the rest of the game, it's a lovely and thoughtful experience worth a few character model fudge-ups.

Knack is a showpiece game. The kind you can show to your friends to give them a good idea of the power of the PS4. It's a colorful third-person action game starring a brawling beast named Knack who is sort of weapon of mass destruction sent to punch through the war between goblins and humans. But as good as the environment looks, Knack's own visual detail, his body of floating relics, doesn't often amount to more than a special effect. It's a game better played for the next-gen graphics than the throwback PS2-style gameplay.

This is a case where the kind of hyper-realistic good looks doesn't make up for just how cookie cutter the rest of Killzone is. Players take control of Lucas Kellan, a soldier in a top-secret program in the middle of a war that plays out in space and alien planets. Shadow Fall tries very hard to be a cautionary tale about warmongering, the politics of crisis and What's Going On in the World Today. But even with glimmers of interesting play ideas, Shadow Fall is ultimately a parade of overused narrative tropes and FPS gameplay design. The advent of next-gen hardware and the technological muscle-flexing that comes with it doesn't make shitty on-rails sections any better.